


True North

by spamtotz



Category: The West Wing
Genre: A hint of fluff, Angst, F/M, I just watched The Al Smith Dinner and it made me sad that they weren't friends anymore, so I wrote how they come back together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 11:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30088623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spamtotz/pseuds/spamtotz
Summary: Donna's with the Santos campaign, now, but she doesn't know anyone and she's still not speaking to Josh with anything that would resemble cordiality. Josh thinks it’s laughably ironic that she’s the one acting all upset. If anyone owes anyone an apology, it’s her to him!Josh and Donna sort of make up on a plane, but in code.
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 16
Kudos: 83





	True North

There’s a buzz on the plane. Nothing audible—most everyone is conked out, totally thrown off balance by the transcontinental time zone shifts—but there’s an indefinable… something. Josh is tired. He’s so tired there’s grit in his eyes, and he can’t tell if this buzz is great, like the bastion of democratic strength mustering itself for a fight, or if it’s just… a last gasp. Maybe losing this election is the final humiliation that he oh so richly deserves. 

Trying to combat the nervous energy that’s frustratingly kept him awake, Josh has completed several passes up and down the plane aisles when he returns to find—

“Lou, you’re in my seat.” 

She looks pretty comfortable sitting there, her crumpled up coat serving as a lumpy pillow. “Yeah, sorry,” she says, settling in and not sounding remotely sorry. “You left. Now it’s mine.”

Josh leans down, his knees creaking in protest, to grab his own coat from the floor. He dusts it off, making sure any debris lands on her lap. She’d just dumped his coat there… “That’s not how this works. You can’t just take my seat.” 

She cracks an eye open to look at him. “Clearly, you didn’t grow up in a big family. That’s exactly how it works.” 

“Lou…” 

“You snooze, you lose, Joshua.” She says it like that’s the final word on the subject.

“That’s what I’m _trying_ to do. I can’t sleep standing up.” 

Sighing heavily, like she’s trying to explain quantum physics to a toddler, Lou reaches up to fiddle with the air vent. “I’m here. This seat is mine. Now, go away,” she says. 

Weirdly, the dismissal makes him miss CJ.

He looks back at the rest of the plane, too hollow, too drained, to be annoyed. There’s a head in every seat except for one. God, how is that possible? Lester is snoring back by the bathrooms, Edie tucked under his arm. Otto looks to be curled up on the floor near the emergency exit. Teddy has a sort of taken over an entire row, and Josh doesn’t particularly feel like playing footsie with him for the next five hours. How and when had they picked up such an extensive traveling circus?

The only open seat is next to Donna.

Josh has been so busy, his attention pulled in a thousand different directions, that he really hasn’t had to think too much about her, and she—to his great relief—has pretty much stayed out of his way. Donna had gotten the all clear because… Well, she’d already sort of been hired, anyway, and Josh didn’t have the time or patience to hunt down another spokesperson.

When he comes up to her, she’s staring out the window, chin in her hand. There’s nothing to see, of course. It’s pitch-black except for the green light on the end of the wing.

She looks… lonely. Lou _may_ have picked her up from the Midwest coordinated campaign, and Otto _may_ have approved of her for the statement response, but she’s only been on board for… What is it? A week and a half? Donna’s well-liked by pretty much everyone she meets—it’s an annoying trait—but he wonders… Had his objections somehow trickled down to the campaign staff? He hadn’t exactly kept them quiet. Is this the political equivalent of hazing?

Hesitant, Josh knocks on the hard plastic of the aisle-side armrest. “Hey, is um… anyone…?” he asks, pointing at the seat.

Donna looks up at him, then shakes her head, clearing off her jacket and purse so he can sit. 

He winces when he swings himself in harder than he means to, jostling her elbow. “Sorry.”

She jerks away from his touch, and her lips are thin when she nods back at him. She’s tense. He can see it in the way her shoulders are set, the line of her neck. Josh thinks it’s laughably ironic that _she’s_ the one acting all upset. If anyone owes anyone an apology, it’s her to him!

There’s a barb on the tip of his tongue—one that he hadn’t gotten to the other day in the hotel—but the desire to use it, to hurt her, dies when she wedges her jacket under her arm, subtly putting space between them.

“Look, Lou took my seat. There’s nowhere else, okay?”

“It’s fine,” she says, her words clipped. She turns away from him, then, resuming her watchfulness over the nothing outside.

A weight crashes down on Josh when he realizes that’s all the conversation they’re likely to have. It’s not fine. It’s so far from fine that it’s in another galaxy. The sneer on her face in Nashua when she’d made fun of the upstart Santos campaign… All this sniping at each other… That’s not Donna. It’s not them. 

He hates to see her like this, so cold. It’s unnatural. 

Donna is the one who makes sure he’s in the right place at the right time, the one who doesn’t back down until all other options are exhausted. She’s true north, the point of reference for everything good and morally correct. She’s the best— Josh cuts off the thought before he can finish thinking it. 

She’s right here but feels so far away. He swallows the lump in his throat. How did they get like this?

“How did you get that?” he asks, touching the edge of the blanket over her lap. It’s pretty fuzzy for a plane blanket… and so unimportant that they can’t possibly fight about it.

“I bribed the flight attendant with tickets to the inauguration.” 

His mouth drops open in surprise. “What? Donna, you know that—”

She sighs, a tiny thing, but Josh can feel in it the months of accumulated misunderstandings and frustration, stacking themselves up higher and higher. Her voice is patient when she says, “I just asked for it.”

“Oh. Right.”

They’re so mismatched. Something as inconsequential as a joke is still beyond their reach. Even when she’d first started with Bartlet for America, they’d never been this stilted, this awkward around each other. There’s so much he wants to ask, so much he doesn’t understand. Why did you go? Why did you leave the White House? Why did you leave _me_? But those questions would only serve to make things more awkward—Josh is one thousand percent sure—and there’s not enough room in his head. The congressman and the campaign need his full attention for the foreseeable future.

“You look tired,” Donna says after a minute, shooting him a sidelong glance.

Josh rubs his eyes, trying to figure out if she means it as an insult before he answers. His brain is throbbing against the inside of his skull, which means a headache is on the way. “Yeah. There’s a lot going on, you know…” He taps his temple. “Up here.” 

“I bet.” 

Cramming his coat behind his head and crossing his arms, Josh stretches his feet into the aisle, convinced that their conversation is over for real. Sleep is not in the cards for him tonight. It wasn’t going to be even before he sat down next to his own living nightmare, but he can at least pretend until he gets called back to the congressman’s cabin. He’ll be able to grab a couple hours at the hotel in… wherever they’re going… and forget about her, again.

Josh jumps in surprise when Donna touches the top of his hand, her fingers cool. “Want to share?” she asks, offering up a corner of the blanket. “I fall asleep easier when it feels a little more like I’m at home…” She trails off, embarrassed. Josh can see it on her face, in the uneasy turn of her smile. “Or something.”

He stares at her, his mind turning over her suggestion. What does she mean? What does she think she’s doing? No. The gate slams shut on that line of thinking. He’s just going to ignore the part about feeling at home. It’s too hard. There’s too much baggage there, and he can’t… 

He takes a breath.

Donna’s not smiling, but Josh thinks there’s something going on around her eyes—a bruised look, shadowy—that makes it seem like she really means it, like a white flag is being waved. She hasn’t let him see her like this up until now. She’s been angry, resentful, and it occurs to Josh that maybe the question shouldn’t be “Why did you leave me?” but instead “What did I do to make you feel like you had to go?”

He knows a peace offering when he sees one, the wall she’s let down. He’d be a fool not to take advantage of it.

“Yeah, okay.” 

Glued to his seat, unable to make his mouth work, Josh watches her push up the middle armrest, drape the blanket over his shoulders, then scoot closer so they both have enough of it. She’s crossed the boundary line between his seat and hers, so near that he catches a whiff of shampoo, so near that their thighs are touching. Josh’s muscles are tight. He’s unsure of what to do with his hands, how to even get his hands working, again. She must think he’s a lunatic.

It’s not great, but… It’s something. At least she’d be feeling anything towards him besides outright loathing.

Before—way before—Donna wouldn’t have asked. She’d have tossed a blanket in his face, plunked herself next to him, and ordered him to go to sleep because he was annoying everyone. Josh can visualize it, how they’d lean together a little more than was probably appropriate. She’d—

“Donna, how did we—”

“I missed you, too, you know,” she says, interrupting him with words so soft his ears strain to hear them. “Every day.” Taking him totally by surprise, she settles her head on his shoulder. 

Josh stiffens beneath her, feeling like he’s been cracked in half. This isn’t how they are, anymore. His little pronouncement had been an accident more than anything else, born of loneliness, anger of his own, and desperation to soothe her. He’d shattered her that day, just as much as she had done to him when she left, and he hates himself for it.

“You did?” he asks, his heart thudding against his ribcage. But… But she’s the one who insisted on working for Bingo Bob. She’s the one who said that thing about being a short order cook without a spatula. 

Could it be true?

Donna nods, her hair slipping over his arm. He can’t feel it through his shirt, but it’s got to be soft. Their shoulders are pressed together, now, their elbows and knees, too. The tip of her shoe is touching his. Josh relaxes when she doesn’t stir, letting his cheek fall against her hair. It’s such a relief, like he’s finally able to let go of a breath he’s been holding on to for months. 

“I’m so tired, Josh. Aren’t you?” 

There’s an evil thought that curls in his mind when she says it, thin and wispy like smoke, a hysterical notion that maybe she’s not talking about being sleepy. God, he wishes he could see Donna’s face, but he’s not about to force a confession from her. The wrong words, the wrong twitch, might shock her right back to being that icy stranger.

“I am. I’m tired, Donna. I’m exhausted.” 

“I know,” she says, her voice sounding watery. “I know you are.”

They’ve never talked in code, not really, but it’s such a sensitive subject that dancing around it might be the closest they ever get to actual apologies. It’s a specialty of theirs, avoidance. If any of this is going to work, they’ll have to… but there just isn’t time. Josh doesn’t want to test the tentative peace they’ve brokered, here, 40,000 feet above the earth.

But the plane engine hums, the green light blinks, and he decides to be brave. 

Under the blanket, Donna’s hand is resting next to his leg. Maybe he’s so worn down that he’s a little deranged at this point, but Josh slides his hand into hers. Hoping beyond hope that she won’t recoil, he intertwines their fingers and squeezes.

It says _I’m sorry_ even though he can’t. _Please forgive me. I was an idiot. Let’s be friends, again._

Donna lets out what sounds curiously like a hiccup, curls her other hand around his bicep, and sighs. It feels right. It feels so right, and it’s only now that she’s back that Josh realizes how wrong it had all seemed without her, how empty it was.

“We should sleep,” she says, nestling further onto his shoulder. “We both know you won’t be able to once you have access to an Internet connection.”

Josh doesn’t sleep, just like he predicted, but he listens to the rhythm of Donna’s breathing, feels the press of her body against his, and he begins to hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! Impact Winter and The Al Smith Dinner just make me so so sad, and so I had to write something to make myself feel better. Josh and Donna 4ever


End file.
